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Research on Vitamin C Coated Stents Recognized

University of South Dakota researchers Eagappanath Thiruppathi
and Gopinath Mani are working on a technique to lower the risks of blood
clots in arteries implanted with stents.

Thiruppathi, a Ph.D. student, and Mani, Ph.D., an assistant professor of
biomedical engineering, have developed a way to coat stents with
vitamin C to function more efficiently for preventing blood clots in
stented arteries. The American Chemical Society (ACS) is touting this
research by showcasing the article published recently in the ACS journal
Langmuir. The article was the topic of a press release that was included in the ACS Office of Public Affairs' Weekly PressPac,
which contains reports of research selected from more than 40
peer-reviewed ACS journals. This service provides leads on the latest
advances in science and their impact on the business word. View the ACS Press Release on this research for more information.

Previous studies have shown that vitamin C is a possible alternative or
addition to drugs currently used to coat stents, which are little mesh
tubes inserted into blood vessels to prop them open. Today's stents are
an improvement from their initial launch as they are coated with
pharmaceuticals that can prevent the affected arteries from reclogging.

According to ACS, about 10,000 to 50,000 people who receive these
drug-eluting stents develop "late stent thrombosis" (LST), a potentially
fatal complication that happens when clots form and clog the arteries.
Drugs used on the stents are helpful in most cases but they might be
responsible for causing problems in others, according to Thiruppathi and
Mani who set out to find a way to address LST using vitamin C. They
discovered that the method of coating a common stent material with
vitamin C could have lasting benefits to the patient as the stent would
slowly release vitamin C over time. The USD researchers concluded that
this technique could be useful for making stents and other implantable
medical devices safer.